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Twitter has democratized stock picking and stock information sharing. I follow many great traders on Twitter and decided to take the beginning of the New Year to ask them for their 2012 predictions.

Image via CrunchBase

I asked 39 of them (almost all of whom I "met" through StockTwits - which is a great free sister service to Twitter that you should definitely check out) simply to send me (1) their top long pick for the year, (2) their top short pick for the year, and (3) their estimate for where the S&P 500 will close 2012.

Keep in mind, several of these traders are not buy-and-hold types. They can jump into and out of a trade very quickly. Nevertheless, they have all shared their favorite longs and shorts.

Also, I only asked people for the stocks, without explanation. I wanted to make it simple for people to respond to my request in order to share the info from the most number of predictors. Nevertheless, some of those I polled asked if they could provide a sentence or two of context. I agreed to share these explanations and they're contained in full below.

Finally, a reminder: some of these folks deliberately have an anonymous Twitter account. In this case, I've only shared their Twitter handle.

The point of this exercise was for all of us to share our best ideas with each other – one of the great aspects of Twitter. I hope you consider following all these folks for their daily insights on their Twitter streams.

Here they are, arranged from most pessimistic to most optimistic about 2012:

Top Long: ConocoPhillips, COP - which is about to spin off the refining/marketing units tax free to shareholders this year and boost the dividend

Top Short: Zynga, ZNGA; Groupon, GRPN – both will be cut in half from today’s prices.

YE S&P Target: 1,200

- Leigh Drogen, @LDrogen

Top Long: Sourcefire, FIRE

Top Short: Strayer Education, STRA

YE S&P Target: 1,200

- @LongShortTrader

Top Long: OfficeMax, OMX - I see 2-3x upside potential (from the 4.50-5.00 range) for the following reasons:

(A) Lehman bankruptcy resolution (which I believe is coming fairly soon) will allow OMX to finally write off legacy NON-RECOURSE debt on its books, that they've had to include for accounting purposes until Lehman resolution. This NON-RECOURSE debt is secured by off-setting assets. The net benefit is roughly equal to at least book value, i.e. book value doubles. OMX is the least levered among the office retailers. Also has lease renewals coming up.

(B) A strong dollar, decline in certain commodities is beneficial to their margins; their margins suck, so this is good.

(C) The consensus view is that SPLS (Staples) is the best among the ODP/OMX/SPLS complex...it is, but it has European exposure. OMX has none (though it has some Australian exposure), and ODP is a mess on various levels.

Top Short: Teavana Holdings, TEA - I see at least 50% downside. They have a cash problem, unclear how they're going to grow, let alone run their business without additional external capital. RISK: insanely high short interest (I want to say 60-70%), so either you wait for a ridiculous + epic short squeeze to initiate a short, or add a position w/ ample margin.

YE S&P Target: 1,150-1,250. I think the risk is to the downside (as of this writing, the level is at 1,277), due to the increasing # of earnings misses/warnings. I think we'll breach the 950-1,050 range within the year.

YE S&P Target: S&P trades between plus 3 and minus 7% with a flat to slightly down 2012. Sharp moves inside that range.

- Matt Busigin, @mbusigin, and @ZipperTheory

Top Long: Leucadia National Corp, LUK - attractive from a number of different aspects. First, you are able to own some of the brightest stewards of capital who have compounded shareholder value at over 20% a year for the past 20 years for slightly less than 4x trailing 12 month earnings. Furthermore, given the low prospects for economic growth, book value of their entities has been thrashed. Even if LUK remains stagnant, showing no growth in earnings, the company is worth about 50% more on a price/book normalization. Lastly, the company has a diversified set of businesses, much like Berkshire Hathaway, which help to diversify the company's revenue stream.

Top Short: 5s, Best way to play this is the CME future, ZF or, alternatively iShares Barclays 3-7 Year Treasury Bond Fund, IEI - Present yields imply core inflation declining to 0.8%. Core inflation has rocketed from the beginning of 2011 to the present 2.2%, and historically bears substantial momentum. Further Fed purchases, if any, will almost certainly be in mortgages and the long-end, as evidenced by "Operation Twist", and their systematic reinvestment of maturing treasuries into MBS. It is further sensitive to inflation expectations being re-stoked.

YE S&P Target: Taking a pessimistic assumption on earnings, working from the top-down consensus of $105, discounting European sales to 0, and all other foreign sales by 15%, we arrive at $88 for 2012. A further pessimistic assumption of a re-test of a 6% ERP (which has marked the peak risk premium since WWII, and has not been breached even in Japan) places our bottom target of 1,173. A 100bps normalization of the ERP, which would still be elevated over average, would place our upper target at 1,354

- Jason Raznick, @JasonRaznick

Top Long: Amazon.com, AMZN

Top Short: Best Buy, BBY - electronic retailers will continue to take share from old line retail

2. Diamond Offshore, DO - offshore drilling should continue to pick up in the Gulf of Mexico and around the world in 2012 as economies and markets slowly improve. The AP recently reported it expects more deep water rigs in total to be working in the GoM during early 2012 than there were before the BP Leak. Has some of the best margins in the industry and a stellar balance sheet.

3. EZCorp, EZPW - pawn broker with stores throughout the U.S. and Mexico. Seems like a no-brainer investment as pawn shops have seen impressive demand and growth due to the weakened state of the U.S. economy over the last few years. Many shops are using the boom time to revamp and retool their stores to appeal to a more mainstream clientele. They're also financing those with short-term loan needs that the big banks have all but abandoned.

4. NetEase.com, NTES - Chinese internet provider with an expanding footprint in the online gaming industry. Targeting China's youth, a large part of the country's fast growing consumer class. Sales and income growth has been better than 20% annually over the last 5 years.

Top Long: Zynga, ZNGA (under $10, sympathy play on the FaceBook IPO, Zynga has more data on Fbook users than any other 3rd party. fake goods, real profits)

Top Short: GameStop, GME (brick-and-mortar going the way of Blockbuster; the future of gaming is in the cloud, not on resell-able disks)

YE S&P Target: 1,398

- David Schawel, CFA at Economic Musings, @dschawel

Top Long: LyondellBasell Industries, LYB - Undervalued chemical company that emerged from bankruptcy a year or so ago, and is very under the radar. The sector as a whole is cheap and could see a meaningful rebound with an economic uptick

Top Short: Dollar Tree, DLTR - this has been a "defensive" contrarian play during the recession, but I believe the valuation is much ahead of itself as its priced for "perfection"

YE S&P Target: 1,400

- Atesa Pacelli, @atesap

Top Long: Walter Energy, WLT

Top Short: Panera Bread, PNRA

YE S&P Target: 1,400

- Todd Sullivan, @ToddSullivan

Top Long: Bank of America, BAC; American Capital, ACAS

Top Short: salesforce.com, CRM

YE S&P Target: 1,400

- Phil Pearlman, @ppearlman

Top Long: Wal-Mart, WMT

Top Short: Best Buy, BBY - I like this pair even though Wal-Mart stores look like hell and $BBY is a crowded short. Partly on technicals but also because $WMT has the resources & killer instinct to exploit weakness in Best Buy and Sears/Kmart & the corporate culture to better, albeit slowly, adapt to an environment rewarding chains like Dollar General below even the general $WMT price point

YE S&P Target: 1,400

- Philip Etienne, @PhilipEtienne

Top Long: OCZ Technology Group, OCZ

Top Short: Zeltiq Aesthetics, ZLTQ

YE S&P Target: 1,400

- Eli Radke, @eradke

YE S&P Target: 1,400 - The S&P has been held up by the NQ and Dow over the past 2 years. If the S&P does not become the leader, I expect a flat to slightly down year

- @_peritas

Top Long: ArcelorMittal, MT

Top Short: SPDR Gold Trust, GLD

YE S&P Target: 1,421

- Michael K. Dawson, @TrendRida

Top Long: Fusion-IO, FIO

Top Short: Groupon, GRPN

YE S&P Target: 1,430

- Ken Shreve, @KenShreve

Top Long: Continental Resources (CLR) – I think 2012 will be a solid year for the Oklahoma-based oil and gas producer with a market capitalization of just over $13 billion. The company has a strong balance sheet and growth prospects are bright, especially in the Bakken Shale in North Dakota and Montana. The stock is currently selling at 26 times trailing earnings and 23 times forward earnings -- a bit pricey but still reasonable considering that the company is expected to grow full-year profit by 24% in 2012. Fourth-quarter earnings are due in February and analysts are looking for another strong quarter. The consensus estimate is for earnings of $0.73 a share, up 43% from a year ago with sales up 64% to $458.5 million.

Top Short: GNC Holdings (GNC) - I like to target stocks that are potentially in the early stages of a price move and new issue GNC Holdings -- with a market cap of $3 billion -- fits the bill. It’s a specialty retailer of health and wellness products that should be able to grow earnings nicely in coming quarters. Mutual fund sponsorship is solid and I believe there’s a good chance that more growth managers hop on board in 2012. Its next earnings report is due in February. Analysts are looking for profit to rise 61% from a year ago to $0.29 share with sales up 14% to $495.7 million. The company went public in April 2010 at $16 and continues to trade nicely above its offering price.

YE S&P Target: 1,446

- Eric Jackson, @ericjackson

Top Long: Yahoo!, YHOO

Top Short: Zynga, ZNGA

YE S&P Target: 1,447

- George Acs, @TheACSMan

Top Long: ProShares UltraShort Silver ETF, ZSL

Top Short: Intel, INTC

YE S&P Target: 1,450

- Eddy Elfenbein, @EddyElfenbein

Top Long: Hudson City Bancorp, HCBK

Top Short: Starbucks, SBUX

YE S&P Target: 1,450

- Adam Warner, @agwarner

Top Long: McDonald’s, MCD

Top Short: Panera Bread, PNRA

YE S&P Target: 1,450

- Timothy Connolly, @SconsetCapital

Top Long: Alcoa, AA

Top Short: Groupon, GRPN

YE S&P Target: 1,475

- Lawrence McDonald, @Convertbond

Top Long: Financial Select Sector SPDR ETF, XLF

Top Short: iShares, Dow Jones US Aerospace & Def. ETF, ITA

YE S&P Target: 1,475

- @Dasan

Top Long: Hewlett-Packard, HPQ

Top Short: Seagate Technology, STX

YE S&P Target: 1,508

- @Morgan_03

Top Long: Capital One Financial, COF; Sanofi, SNY

Top Short: Digital Realty Trust, DLR

YE S&P Target: No SpX target but I think we get a 20%+ move off index lows this year. Like market moving from being down 10% to up 10% or down 15 to up 5....

- Francine McKenna, @retheauditors

Top Long: Dunkin Donuts, DNKN - I like their new cafe concept and everywhere they open a new site they're adding jobs. It's big business translated to small business impact. Here on the South Side of Chicago an existing franchisee added a third new site and 30 new employees. Place is full all day. Will blow through their 52-week high of 31.94 by April 1.

Top Short: JPMorganChase, JPM - Big mortgage and financial crisis litigation on their plate (Lehman multibillion $ case will go to trial). They've also got Madoff and MF Global troubles still looming. The MBIA decision means disclosures about repurchase and monoline exposure should be more explicit by the end of 1Q if not in the annual report out at end of February. I predict Dimon will be out before end of year, JPM will hit their fifty-two week low of 27.85 and go lower with news of additional reserves for litigation contingencies across the board by the end of March.